Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I feel like it's been forever since I've had an opportunity to blog. Since I barely have time to wipe my ass after I shit, blogging has unfortunately been hard to do.

So, instead of telling you about something yummy I've made (Hopefully I'll have something good for next weekend!) I figured I'd tell you about my latest meal...

Tonight I went to dinner at Del Posto with my good friend and cake partner, Emma, and her hubby Chris. It was delish! I had actually trailed at Del Posto while still in school. (A trail is sort of a hands on interview. You go and work an unpaid day at a restaurant to make sure you like the food, the job, and most importantly, the people.) Let's just say, at the time, it wasn't for me.

Emma had her friend - the Pastry Sous Chef - make us a reservation. When we walked in, we were very well taken care of. We were escorted to our table and were given an amuse before we even received a menu. The amuse consisted of a lobster and caviar toast (Chris ate mine. There was no way I was going near that!), pickled cabbage wrapped in prosciutto, and what I'll call a bruschetta shooter.

We finally received a menu and chose to do a tasting. Emma and I started our meal with a primavera salad while Chris chose the calamari. The presentation of the salad was like a canvas - a boutique of herbs, lettuces, flowers and vegetables with a pea puree, lemon and goat's milk ricotta dressing.

Then they brought out bread. Rut roh. i don't even want to think about how much bread I consumed. All homemade, they were pretty tasty - Mini baguette, lemon-thyme focaccia, olive ciabatta and pine-nut multi seed roll. As if that weren't enough, they were accompanied by imported Italian butter and a housemade lardo flavored with roasted garlic.

Next came the pastas which I will have dreams about for days to come. We started off with a ricotta filled ponsoti (think tortellini meets ravioli) with green and white asparagus and black truffle butter sauce. Sigh. Because one pasta is never enough, we then had Garganelli verdi (think penne but hand rolled) in a classic bolognese sauce. I had to restrain myself from licking the plate.

Our entrees came next. Emma went with the Halibut, Chris with Rib-Eye and I was adventurous (for me, at least) and had breaded, baked veal stuffed with broccoli rabe and fontina cheese served in a jus. Two thumbs up, definitely.

By this time I was stuffed. This also happened to be the time that our server asked us permission to have the pastry chefs choose our desserts for us. We had no clue what to expect. Being that it was recently Chris' birthday, they brought out a chocolate cake decorated with berries, chocolate and edible flowers for him to take home. The cake was replaced with a dessert amuse - salted cashew ice cream with orange zest and olive oil. I wanted a pint to take home. It tasted like a salty creamsicle with cashews.

Then we were each served a plated dessert. Emma had celery sorbet with figs in a balsamic glaze and breadcrumb coated goat cheese mousse. Chris was served Strawberry gelato with strawberries and pea cakes (I think!?) I was given lemon cake with slow-roasted nectarine and basil ice cream. Very good.

Then came "the cheese grater" It is basically a cheese grater with petite fours. We had little toffee pops, bomboloni filled with citrus pastry cream, a tartlette, dehydrated grapefruit and caramel candy.

Just when I was about to throw up, Roger brought out a chocolate tree. Basically, a hunk of chocolate decorated with... chocolates.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Anyone who knows my good friend Lindsay knows she's a Harry Potter fanatic! A few weeks before her birthday I told her that I would take care of her cake because I wanted to make her something fun! Well, because I couldn't find pipettes (you may have noticed my begging for help on facebook!) I wasn't able to make them in time for her birthday.

I wanted to use the Butterbeer that is served in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios as a reference. Basically, it's a cream soda with a underwhipped, butterscotch flavored cream on top. I made a buttery vanilla cake and topped it with a butterscotch whipped topping. This is where the pipettes come in. I filled them with cream soda.

To eat, remove the pipette and squirt the soda into your mouth and chase it with a big bite of cupcake and frosting.